Je t'aime, mon Café Rolle

Sometimes you just want to be able to be in a completely different setting or place than the one you are in, for a short period. I know that I wake up many mornings and say, “I want to go to Timbuktu!” (Side note: If this city gained one penny for every time it was mentioned in a random reference, it would’ve been led by a Sheikh), or “I want to be in Madagascar”.

This particular day I woke up feeling a little classy and raised my eyebrow to “I need to go to Paris”. I’ve always had a dramatic vision of the city and loved the idea of it in my head, but unfortunately never had the chance to actually go visit; maybe on my honeymoon – eligible bachelor, wherever you are, are you listening? Hello?

Anyhow, the weather was so lovely that evening, and we decided to head out to Sacramento for a good meal. Through her research, my sister had found a small French café that was mentioned in Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat in the U.S, located in East Sacramento.

We arrived at Café Rolle without any difficulties and noticed that it was, indeed, quite a small yet, cozy café.  As you walk in, there’s the sweetest chorus of “Bonjour!” and you are led to your table.

The café is decorated with bright walls that are covered with frames, pictures and paintings. I absolutely enjoyed the open kitchen with an open window, where the chef flashes an adorable smile every so often! 

Click here to get a feel of the restaurant.

Chef William Rolle sneaking me a smile! :D

This restaurant is owned by Chef William Rolle who is there to bring his family recipes that date back to his father in Lyon, France, right to our palates. You can feel the homeliness in the friendly, family-oriented atmosphere.

This restaurant actually featured in Diner’s, Dine-ins & Dives with Guy Fieri. Click here to see (05:36 onwards).

Some of Chef William Rolle’s recipes can be found at foodnetwork.com too.

Coming back, this ‘sandwicherie’ has a super to-the-point menu that consists of small plates, salads and sandwiches! A crazy sandwich galore indeed!

Our server came to brief us up with the bestsellers and honestly, between us, I think his voice was one of the hot sellers! He goes by the name of Nico Chandler, very assistive and friendly and oh God when he spoke, my sister had to ask him if he sang!! Turns out he was a singer, an opera singer if I’m not mistaken. Really appreciated his highly ambitious attitude towards life.

Anyway, for starters we ordered their Chilled Salmon served with fresh dill and crème fraiche, Chilled Foie Gras, and Chicken Breast Pate Plate.

As told to us by Nico, their salmon was voted best in Sacramento since 13 years! I’m not a salmon eater, at all, and I’ve declared myself as psychologically allergic to it but this fresh slab of fish did NOT get me gagging! Really flavorful and definitely the best-looking salmon I’ve ever seen. Also, it’s the chef’s special family recipe and we all know that everything world-class is always found in a home kitchen!
I like pates. They’re tricky to get right, and clearly Café Rolle figured the trick out. I loved it here.

Left: Chicken Breast Pate Right: Chilled Salmon with creme faiche

It was my first time having Foie Gras, and am certainly glad I spent the special moment here. If I were to not get into its technicalities, it was really just a God-sent piece from heaven that had the ability to melt in your mouth and tear your eyes up out of sheer gratitude for the man who created it. Basically.

Chilled Foie Gras

These were just starters, by the way, the “small plates”. Our main course consisted of Croque Lamb Monsieur, Hot Prawns Sandwich, and the Croque Chicken Monsieur.

After the arrival of my Hot Prawns Sandwich, Chef William Rolle himself brought the other two sandwiches and with his sweet, contagious smile prompted us to “bon appetit”.

Croque Lamb Monsieur takes meat sandwiches to a whole different level. It’s not your average “roast lamb” sort of sandwich. You can taste the high quality meat with its fresh, moist taste surrounded with a generous touch of fat – remarkable!

The dressing on their Spring Mixed Salad served on the side was fantastic, by the way! They seem to nail everything.

Croque Lamb Monsieur

The Croque Chicken Monsieur was investigated thoroughly by each of us because there was no way a chicken breast fillet could be that moist and tender. But what can we say? It was just that beautifully cooked! There’s a hint of pesto that tickles the taste buds and definitely makes you pray for the sandwich to not end. Ever. (Chicken sandwiches aren’t something I usually crave since they’re always available everywhere in clichéd forms but this – I, damn well, crave right now!)

Croque Chicken Monsieur

Saved this one for the last because HOLY COW IT RAISED MY SANDWICH STANDARD TO A COMPLETELY UNREACHABLE LEVEL!

The Hot Prawns Sandwich is like nothing I’ve ever had in my entire life. I’ve forgotten to mention that their breads are absolutely fantastic and the temperature that they serve their hot sandwiches at is solely perfection.

Every devoured bite experiences layers of flavors.

You chew into a hot quality bread, feel a piece of a perfectly cooked tiger prawn make its way through followed by oozing Gruyere cheese, and this entire episode of a bite is constantly splashed with flavors of pesto that does not overpower any other flavor. If that doesn’t sound good, what in the world does? Totally worth the long, descriptive sentence.

I could go on about this sandwich but I suggest you head to Café Rolle to discover the feeling.

Hot Prawns Sandwich

We concluded the meal with the best Toffee Crème Brulee, rather one of the best Crème Brulee’s I have ever had. This one you can judge for yourself below!

Toffee Creme Brulee

I hope this video loads for you. If not, CLICK HERE to get to my instagram account

(Psst, if you listen close enough you will hear Nico's voice saying "you're welcome" right at the end... sigh)

After a beautiful meal, I had no other option but to go compliment the chef through his adorable window and ask for his name to remember this experience forever.

To my pleasant surprise, this friendly chef not only gave me a virtual autograph on my Samsung Galaxy Note 4, but also allowed me to come into the kitchen and take a picture with the Café Rolle crew, AND I got to have a selfie with him too!!!!

Team Cafe Rolle 

Selfie with Chef William Rolle <3 <3

The day & age of virtual signatures!

Thank you Mr. William Rolle, for one of the best experiences I’ve ever had and for being one of the most humble chefs ever!

Dubai Diaries: Day 2 - Busaba Eathai

The London nostalgia has been kicking in a lot lately and this time I had my sister-in-law to reminisce with. We were jumping out of excitement when we found out that Busaba Eathai had opened in Dubai and were ready to head there the very next day for lunch. We were back in JBR, which was to my advantage, because I really wanted to swing by the place during the day. Strolling down ‘The Walk’ became a tad bit fatiguing in the scorching heat but as soon as we arrived our destination, I felt like I was stepping inside Busaba Eathai at Bond Street Station.

JBR Walk

 We were the only customers there, but that may be because it’s hidden in a secluded area in the insides of JBR. Busaba has a modern, contemporary but a very simple layout with long wooden benches around large, square shared tables. The entire kitchen along with the chefs at work is visible through a glass, so you can clearly see what’s going on inside.

Busaba Eathai takes from Thai cuisine but isn’t entirely authentic, so it’s best not to expect nose dripping curries or Tom Yum Goongs. This is more of an eccentric Thai meets Western taste buds sort of cuisine.

We remembered the favorites from London, but our Brady Bunch of seven had varying palates. That’s actually the best part about Busaba, the menu is quite brief but everybody can find something that they like.

We ordered the Thai Calamari and as good as it tasted, the dish was such a pleasure to look at. It was presented with a fine texture and I loved the aftertaste.

Thai Calamari

 From the two curries, Green Chicken Curry and Red Beef Curry, the red one was a bit of a disappointment with not much flavor to offer at all but the green curry made up for it. The ingredients were so well blended together and the taste of coconut mixed spices was a real treat, especially with the delightful sticky rice to complement it. Remarkable.

Red Beef Curry

Green Chicken Curry

 The stir-fry chili prawns were delicious as always and lived up to the reputation of being in the top 5 of “what to order” at Busaba Eathai – this was the only dish we ordered second rounds of!

Stir-fry chili prawns

 My absolute favorite was the Pad Kwetio. The dish looked fantastic and was extraordinarily aromatic and the wide noodles were cooked to perfection, flavored with oriental, tangy spices. The plate was wiped clean as soon as it arrived which is why I was unable to take picture of that divine looking dish. Highly recommended.

We also ordered the Char-grilled Chicken with spicy cucumber salad and sticky rice but it was a complete miss. The chicken was quite dry and bland in flavor and didn't really do justice to the rest of the variety there. Nevertheless, the sauce it was served with was great.

Char-grilled Chicken

Even though it wasn’t required, we didn’t find it courteous to simply ignore the dessert especially when they had Sticky Rice with Mango and Coconut!! The only typical Thai item there lived up to its mark and left us extremely satisfied with our meal.

Thumbs up for the very attentive staff there and the great service we got.

Mango with sticky rice and coconut

Dubai possibly has everything you could ask for from the west and if it doesn’t, it’s probably on its way.

Dubai Diaries : Day 1 - A taste of the Arabian sea

Spring just got a whole lot better when my dad suggested a spontaneous trip to our second home – Dubai. I didn’t inherit wanderlust from my family and usually just appreciate travel with a motive, but after 4 topsy-turvy months a break was much due.

Emirates decided to serve us black lamb cubes with a dodgy looking curry (contrary to the exotic descriptions in their menu) during our flight from Karachi to Dubai but hey, I’m not complaining because at least now I know why those vomit bags are necessary. Brrr.

Dubai never fails to amuse me. It’s the only brown-dominated city with high-rise buildings, high ways, Tim Horton’s, legit metros and the largest mall in the world – to say the least.

We hit the infamous Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR) for a pleasant evening out on our first day. More commonly known as “The Walk”, this strip gives home to diverse eateries spread out in abundance. The entire layout is quite pleasing actually – the glitzy view of the beach, pavements covered with the hustle bustle of all restaurant customers and a few unique, high end shops that are not found at the malls.

We fleet through the entire road till our growling stomachs were driven to Aprons & Hammers – our choice for the evening.

I’m not too big on seafood, except shrimps, but my Dubai-settled uncle convinced me that I had no idea what I was on about until I ate there. We were too hangry (hungry + angry, incase you missed my genius, unoriginal collaboration of words in the blog name) to argue and settled for the claws I would have had to struggle with.The concise menu made it easy for us to weigh our options and the very courteous server suggested the right amounts for our party of six!

The complimentary breadbasket was so fresh that we attacked the poor thing like biryani served at a Valima (I couldn’t even take a picture of the whole thing as served)… and we had to sheepishly ask for another one after a stretched seven minutes.

We were given our own aprons, allowing us to be as messy as we wanted and the server showed us disposable plastic gloves that we could use.  The Shrimp Cocktail was the first to arrive as a starter, and I honestly don’t have another clichéd word other than DELICIOUS.

The portion of shrimps was quite generous and unlike many other places, the dish was as simple as shrimps served with sauce so one could cover the shrimp as desired. It wasn’t layered with too many greens, nor were they pre-mixed in their in-house creation of the cocktail sauce. The Shrimp Cocktail was pretty much perfect.

Prawn Cocktail

Up next were our lavish platters and buckets. We ordered a Grilled Lobster Platter with Pepper Cream Sauce, a Mussels Bucket with Lemon Butter Sauce, and a Shrimp Bucket with and Olive Oil mix of Garlic and Lemon.

The shell-covered shrimps were rather flavorsome, and the sauces were well blended to the insides of the little guys. I especially enjoyed the mild hit of garlic that was felt at the end of every shrimp. These fellas topped my list.

Grilled Shrimps Bucket

Though not a fan of the creature, I tried the Lobsters and was relatively surprised that I enjoyed it!! The sauce actually was brilliant – a very zestful combination of flavors and the creamy texture really hit the nail. Again, I personally am not too keen on eating lobsters and hence wasn’t too comfortable struggling to dig out its meat from the shell, however, the others at the table guzzled down the entire platter. Special mention of the sauce again, I kept dunking my fingers in to have more.

Grilled Lobster Bucket

Mussels

It was my first time with Mussels and my feelings switched from disgust to devour. My dad forced me to spoon out just one to taste, and see below a portion of my plate to gauge how that story ended! They were divine. Period.

Trick:

1. Break the upper shell from where it joins the one which carries the meat
2. Scoop the mussel meat with the empty shell as a spoon
3. Drink the leftover sauce from the shell directly
4. Cry out of happiness.

After our Desi appetites had been fulfilled, we were given a bowl of lukewarm water with lemon & mint to wash our hands with. I felt royal.

For dessert we opted for the Cheesecake 101 with Strawberry Sauce and the Sensational Chocolate Fondant.

The cheesecake was nothing to write home about but the chocolate fondant was as sensational as its name suggested, still not the best one I’ve had though.

Aprons & Hammers was an enjoyable experience and I definitely don’t mind going there again. Even though it’s a little steep on the pocket, I’d say the servings make up for it.

I’m proud of myself. First, walking The Walk and then the Mussels.

#highlifeDubai?